Fairfax County Police Watch: McLean McDonalds high school crowd video posted on YouTube

click here for WJLA story on McLean assault by police

Several days after five students were arrested in McLean in the aftermath of a high school basketball game, a student claims that he was mistreated by police who responded to the scene.

Langley student Sam Horst is still in disbelief by the way he says he was treated by a McLean police officer.

“I don't know what I did to make him do that to me,” he says. “I didn't know what was going on.”

Horst says students from both schools gathered at the McDonalds off Old Dominion Road as they normally did.

The Youtube video shows students packed inside the McDonald’ when at least three police officers stepped in to disperse the crowd.

Horst says he was about to order food when suddenly the cop grabbed him. Horst told ABC7 that he was struck three times with a baton and then pushed to the wall by his throat. He was then given a breathalyzer test and released. Horst's father says he plans on filing a complaint with police.

His father says he believes police overstepped their bounds

“They banged around a 17-year-old kid for really no good reason,” says Peter Horst. “I'm so upset this happened. I'm enraged.”

McLean Patch first reported that one of the five students were arrested at the a downtown McLean McDonald's after a game between McLean High School and Langley High School.

The video, posted by the user "MHSBlackPath," shows a huge throng of students packed into the restaurant, with Fairfax County Police officers attempting to break up the crowd.

Another parent said that a police officer allegedly gave her son a bloody lip and caused him to cough up blood as a result of being struck in the throat.

Diana McColgan says her son came home with a bloody lip after an officer hit him with his baton stick.

“His lip was swollen,” she says. “He was devastated.”

Fairfax County Police won't comment on whether inappropriate action was taken pending investigation. But they say students were acting rowdy inside the McDonald’s.

“We dispersed the crowds, made one arrest,” says Lucy Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Fairfax County Police Department. “We had also made some charges. Unfortunately, underage drinking can be an issue."

Horst says all he wants is an apology.

“It seemed excessive,” he says. “It just surprises me they wouldn't just tell people what happened.”

Morrogh finds cop he doesn’t love. In other news, hell freezes.

Probe of fatal police shooting goes to federal authorities

By Justin Jouvenal/Post

The Fairfax County prosecutor has turned over the investigation of a fatal police shooting of an unarmed Springfield man to federal authorities, citing complications with the five-month-old case.

Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh said the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia has agreed to continue the probe into the death of 46-year-old John Geer, who was shot during a standoff with Fairfax County police in August. No one has been charged in the incident.

“There is a conflict of interest that has arisen in the case,” Morrogh said Thursday. “And there is a second potential conflict of interest that has arisen out of my office. . . . This is the prudent thing to do.”

Morrogh declined to describe the nature of the conflicts because the investigation is ongoing. The U.S. attorney’s office said Thursday that it could not confirm or deny any investigation or comment on pending investigations.

Police went to Geer’s Pebble Brook Court home on Aug. 29 because of a report of a domestic disturbance. Geer’s father, Don Geer, said his son was upset because his girlfriend, the mother of his two children, had decided to leave him.

John Geer had thrown his girlfriend’s belongings in the front yard. She called police and told them that Geer had a firearm. Police said they tried for about 50 minutes to persuade Geer to leave the home, but he refused.

Don Geer said he watched the climax of the encounter. He said that he could not hear what officers were saying to his son but that he saw him standing with empty hands resting on top of a screen door at the home’s entrance.

At some point, John Geer began to slowly lower his hands and an officer opened fire, hitting Geer in the chest, his father said. Geer retreated inside and closed the door. A SWAT team eventually entered the home and found Geer dead.

Don Geer said detectives later told him that his son did not have a gun on him at the time of the shooting but that there was a holstered handgun a couple of steps from the front door.

Don Geer said it appeared to him that the shooting was unjustified, but he was unsure what to make of the probe being turned over to federal authorities.

“I don’t know whether that’s good or bad — if I had a better idea of why they are doing it, I could form an opinion,” he said.

Geer and friends of his son have been critical of how long the investigation has taken, but Morrogh said police and prosecutors were working to explore all the evidence. He did not think federal prosecutors would have to start from scratch.

“No one wants these things to linger on,” Morrogh said.

Our ink will outlast his career

Under the reign of former Chief of Police Rhorer the Fairfax County Police arrested a man for not wearing clothes in his house while he made coffee, set up an eye doctor on a gambling charge and then used the SWAT team to kill him. An investigation into the charge that the Doctor’s primary clients were cops has never been investigated. The police gunned down an emotionally unstable man because cop who shot him wrongly assumed the man was trying to escape. He wasn’t. The cops also shot dead four other citizens under highly questionable circumstances. The department under Rhorer was sued multiple times by citizens. So did they fire Rhorer? Naw they promoted him. According to news reports Rhorer draws a salary of $191,168 per year as Deputy Fairfax County Executive as well as a concurrent pension from the Fairfax County police of $173000 per year.

Occupation by force

According to the most recent U.S. Census figures, nearly one in five Fairfax residents (17.5 percent) is of Asian descent while Hispanics make up nearly 16 percent of Fairfax’s overall population. Those numbers drop considerably when applied to the Fairfax County Police Department, where only 4.3 percent of officers are Asian and 4.1 percent Hispanic. White officers make up 84 percent of Fairfax County’s 1,360-member police department, significantly higher than the county’s general population (54 percent white). Almost 90% of the force lives outside the county.